Nintendo Turns 125: 5 lesser-known facts that shaped the Nintendo we know today

Nintendo - the company that gave us some of the world’s most popular handheld gaming devices is 125 years old. What began as a humble, handmade playing cards company, has become the world’s most influential gaming company today. However, there’s more to this Japanese company than just video games. Like everything great, it has a rich history which dates back to almost 70 years before the first video game was invented.

1. Nintendo knew they had to be bigger: When Hiroshi Yamauchi (the then president of Nintendo) visited the world’s largest playing card-making company The United States Playing Card Company, he was surprised at how small their offices were. The observation brought  him to realise that Nintendo had to do more than just manufacture playing cards to sustain. Hiroshi then began investigating other areas he could build on. He started by incorporating Disney characters on its playing cards.

2. Love Hotel taxi, Instant rice and Vacuum cleaners: Following the forethought, Yamauchi began investing in a range of products including a taxi company called “love hotel”, a food company that made packaged “instant rice”,  a vacuum cleaner, Chiritory, and finally toy making. These brought little success to Nintendo, whose only commercial successes were a few children’s toys. However, the company struggled to keep up with the market demands owing to the short life cycle these toys had. Nintendo later abandoned other ventures in favour of toys and rebranded themselves to Nintendo Co. Ltd.

3. “We need to develop something!” - talk to the ‘Ultra Hand’: Gunpei Yokoi was just a maintenance guy in Nintendo’s toys-manufacturing arm, when Hiroshi was desperate to sell a new toys for that year’s Christmas rush. Yokoi presented him with an extending arm toy that he had constructed in his spare time - a wood lattice that could reach and grab when its handles were pushed together. Hiroshi named the arm Ultra Hand, which became an instant success selling more than 1.2 million units. Yokoi quickly got promoted to become a game designer who then engineered some of Nintendo’s best gaming devices and video game franchises including Super Mario Land. The D-Pad, or the cross-shaped button, eliminated the need for a joystick. This has since been used on every controller for every console till today, including the Sony Playstation and the Microsoft Xbox.

4. An LCD calculator inspired Nintendo’s first portable gaming device: Yokoi noticed a gentleman next to him fiddling with an LCD calculator to pass his time. Yokoi wondered if people might be interested in a portable game machine after a boring day’s work. Thus the first Nintendo video game was born, which was called Game & Watch. The portable gaming device had a single game in addition to a clock and an alarm.

5. Mario Bros. was based on the Popeye love triangle: Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto intended to create a Popeye video game, but Nintendo could not obtain the license to do so. Miyamoto still retained the essence of the plot, with Popeye subbed by Mario, Olive Oly by Lady and burly Bluto played by a massive gorilla, Donkey Kong. Instead of a can of spinach, a hammer would briefly empower the protagonist.

Today, Nintendo has its business spread across toys, arcade games, and video games. It has released nearly thirty different types of gaming devices including handhelds and home consoles. It’s biggest hit, the Nintento Wii, sold 101.06 million hardware units and 895.22 million software units worldwide. Among its newer devices, Nintendo sold over 43 million 3DS units so far and over 6.17 million Wii U units.